Quid Pro Quo – This For That – In Nigeria: Matters Arising

Chioma is a brilliant, creative and disciplined young graduate of biochemistry. It is now two years since she passed out from NYSC, yet she has not been employed. She has attended several interviews and has been told on three occasions that she was the most qualified for the position and was expected to start work soon. Then the phone calls came. Meet me at X, Y and Z hotel for your acceptance letter. At the various hotels, Chioma’s various prospective male recruiters asked for one thing, sex. Chioma refused all requests and walked away. Each time she hit the hotel room door, she always heard the same thing. If you leave this room, then forget about the job. So was it. After the third incident which happened just a few weeks ago in Owerri, Chioma called me for counseling but also begged me to talk to one of the three recruiters she knows very well to be ‘a very good Catholic, a Knight.” I counseled Chioma and prayed for her but chose not to call the recruiter. Rather I decided to write this article.

Whether it is sex in exchange for a job, gifts in exchange for a promotion, or ‘ten, twenty…percent’ cash back in exchange for a contract, quid pro quo is common among Nigerian politicians, professionals and business men/women. Although quid pro quo is considered unethical in the business world and may contravene some parts of the Nigerian National Ethics in Chapter II, section 23 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution, neither the Nigerian government, labor unions, business organizations nor professional bodies seem to worry about it. In most civilized and civilizing nations, quid pro quo belongs among the ‘zero tolerance’ unethical behaviors both in the private and public sectors. In the US, for instance, most employers in the private sector will fire Chioma’s recruiters right away. If they are professionals, such as medical doctors or teachers or priests, they may loose their professional licenses temporarily or permanently. If they are in the public sector, they may have to serve some jail terms in addition to loosing their jobs and licenses. Why is quid pro quo not tolerated around the world and should not be tolerated in Nigeria? Several reasons come to mind, but let us consider a few.

(1) Quid pro quo is an act of injustice: Whether justice is giving each person her due or as fairness, quid pro quo falls short of it. If Chioma has emerged as the most qualified for the job, it would be unjust to demand an arm from her for the position, after all sex with recruiter was not part of the formal requirements for the position. Even if it was, such a requirement would be unconscionable and offensive to our common sense of justice and fairness in the job market.

(2) Quid pro quo discourages hardwork, excellence and merit at a very high social cost: Not everyone can be a biochemist. Only those who have excelled in their training as biochemists are usually given such jobs. That is why those wishing to pursue a career in biochemistry have to work hard while in training to excel. This is true of any career. Imagine how Chioma’s younger Sister, a hardworking 200 level petrochemical engineering student would feel on learning that even with a magna cum laude, the only way her sister could get a job would be to have sex with a recruiter. Of course she will be discouraged. In Nigeria where Chioma’s case is commonplace in high and low places, the immediate social consequence of quid pro quo is that younger people (who are mostly the potential job seekers) will find no value either in going to school at all or working hard in school since the job market has no regard for excellence and merit. Little wonder our country is now one of the worst countries to be born on the planet. Who wants to live in a country where he or she cannot walk his way to success by merit?

(3) Quid pro quo has an economic cost: The end of the usual competitive training towards any career is not only to weed out those who can’t do it, but also to prepare those who can to do a quality job. Surely, having denied Chioma (the best qualified) the job, it would have to go to someone else less qualified – perhaps someone more romantic! The immediate consequence of this is that the rest of us would have to live with a less qualified biochemist. In Nigeria where quid pro quo is almost cultural, it should not be a surprise why majority of the nation’s workforce whether in the offices or in the factories can hardly deliver high quality jobs. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why Nigeria has been listed as one of the worst places to do business in the world. Who wants to buy from a market filled with amateur work force delivering little or no quality outcomes?

(4) Finally, quid pro quo is an abuse of human dignity. Although employers, especially in the private sector, can hire and fire at will, they are often bound by some legally enforceable moral obligations not to abusively hire or fire. Demand for sex in exchange for a job is a shamefully exploitative way of hiring Chioma. So also are demands for gifts for promotions and cash backs for contracts. Such exploitations in no small way abuse the inherent dignity of every human person because perpetrators of these evils are simply using their victims to achieve their selfish ends. As Immanuel Kant has rightly argued, no person may be used as a means to an end because no other end is more valuable than the human person who is an end in itself.

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RE; Quid Pro Quo in Nigeria: Where are we going, Any Way Out? I read with trepidation, Godswill Agbagwa of the Centre for Social Awareness, Advocacy and Ethics’ treatise on the malignant attitude of disregarding excellence and merit in Nigeria. Therein, he highlighted the consequences of the affliction on the moral, economic and other facets of the nation’s wellbeing. His litanies of the agonies are unassailable but being a pragmatist, I believe that more flesh and blood to a matter is of essence and that is why I do not just wish to ask, ‘Quo vadis” (Where are we going?), but have attempted to adduce a way. I may wish to begin by saying that beyond sexual gratification as in the case of Chioma, as related in the original article (Quid Pro Quo (This for That) In Nigeria: Matters Arising), various factors have contributed to the designation of excellence to the backyard in our beloved Nigeria. Like Chioma, Emeka (Not real name) suffered same in 2005 when he was invited by Guiness Nigeria PLC for the post of Manager; Community Relations for the Southern Region to be based in Akwa Ibom State.The venue was at the Guiness Headquaters in Oba Akran Avenue in Lagos. In his cheap file jacket were the evidence of a first degree in Philosophy, a Master’s degree in Sociology, a first degree in Law, a certificate in French Language and proficiency in Efik, Ekoi, Ibibio and Eket. Emeka is full blooded Igbo so, if you consider that fact, you have a local polyglot applying for a core-communications job. Emeka missed the opportunity and curiosity led him to finding out that the job was given to a gentleman who for legal reasons I cannot mention his name here and who is entirely Yoruba and studied Theatre Arts at the Obafemi Awolowo university. So one can see that, ‘Chioma ‘Ian’t seen nothing yet’! However, there is no insinuated disrespect of/for the discipline of Theatre Arts. Indeed, Emeka himself had sought to justify the gentleman’s appointment on the basis of the fact that the interviewers – all Yoruba, were merely clowns who chose the candidate that was more of the same feather with them. No one asked Emeka for sex (as could well be the case now – with the growing trend of homosexuality!) No one asked him for money, which could have as well been. No one asked him if a high profile government official was his backer – as his Curriculum vitae had references from an ‘unknown’ Dr Izu M Onyeocha (as he then was) and ‘a’ Professor Anthony Anwuka then Vice Chancellor of an Eastern State university who/which, in themselves were no figures on the lethal chess board of Nigeria’s brinkmanship. What then, were his sins? Simple, Not Yoruba! On another instance, I called the police one day to demand for a quick action against rampaging armed robbers in Ekwema Crescent in Owerri in 2007. The reply to me was that “Oga, we no get fuel”! They, the Police, then, actually demanded for fuel without which they would not attend the call. By the time our ‘transaction’ was over, the armed robbers had gone! I have attempted to make a montage of factors that waylay merit and excellence in two contrite experiences in our beloved Nigeria and this is not even exhaustive!

But who, on earth is to blame, our genetic constitution? I think it is the absence of the framework for good governance that has allowed the entire system to reek with the weight of an anomaly that has become a way of life. There is hardly any institution of repute/capacity which upholds the trappings of any form of workability in the society. In developed climes or indeed other developing climes of note, there are such institutions as Citizens Advise Bureau, Office of Fair trading, Legal Aid, The Ombudsman or even a workable criminal justice system that hold people to account for their actions. This means that the Police, the Court and the Prison systems live up to their billings. In Nigeria, this is not the case, established institutions like the EFCC, with due respect to their recorded successes are rather launch pads for the apprehension of people opposed to the government or merely used to whip laid backs to toe the line. On the human level, the calibre of people who hold offices as a result of the monster anomaly are mostly inept knob heads who are neither innovative, inventive nor capable of keeping up with the times or just mere quota seat occupiers of offices! However, behind the lack of the workable framework to ensure a just and equitable society is also the brazen complicity by the various government of the day in the recourse to the purposeful relegation of merit/excellence and the promotion of a life style which Agbagwa has come to designate as ‘Quid pro quo’. A veritable example is the morally decrepit government of Imo State under Ikedi Ohakim. Apart from riding rough shod over his people, Ohakim, like Nero, celebrated while ‘Ndimo’ burnt. He abhorrently sold forms for non-existent employment positions and when questioned why, he blurted that money was needed to process the forms for the non-existent jobs! He and his adjutants got away with that and numerous other aberrations as there were no workable framework for justice to bring them to book for such and other wrongful acts! As is obvious, the major problem with illegalities in Nigeria is that they continue unabated and without intervention by the law and her institutions. In other climes, the government and her institutions are constantly protecting their citizens from any sort of exploitation and continually evolving new ways to tackle crime. In the instances I have given, such agencies like the EFCC or the Public Complaints Commission were supposed to throw the book at Ohakim and his lieutenants but such was not the case and probably, will never be! The Police Independent Complaints Commission, for example, exists only in name otherwise the failed call out of the police by me and many others in similar dire straits would have been investigated and accounted for. But who can blame a people shortchanged by their own government, hungry for want of food, unenlightened by repression and unemployed as a result of lack of jobs or opportunity to create jobs? I am aware that rectitude in our society is in continuous decline. Rectitude was sadly, the bedrock and core values of our various traditional societies. Today, fighting the cankerworms is like bearding a lion in his own den with dire consequences – at the arena of the 2003 PDP presidential election convention, I overheard a loud conversation of some unknown government official and an adjutant; “Oga we don killam!” said the adjutant. “Why did you kill him”? the ‘Oga’ blurted out looking around. Now realizing himself and speaking in hushed remonstrating tones, the man said, “Oga him been too dey disturb…today, na, say you no build road, tomorrow, na water…” A quick glance indicated that the said ‘Oga’ was under police protection, and to live to tell the tale, I began to cough wildly, while looking for somewhere to un-gorge my phlegm and weep for the demise of the unknown who had dared to ask! But will this have to continue unabated? Certainly not. Continued education and proactive measures based on the core values of what is right and just and respect for the rule of law will aid our advance. Unfortunately, I am aware that the progress is snail slow and some insist that it has failed. I for one, believe that to ingrain justice and equity, we need the will, a strong will for an Arab spring or a less barbaric but modern-day-guillotine styled revolution of the French – if we do not do so now, we may soon be served as designer dishes to our oppressors. Amaeshi Magnusanthony, A.k.a. CAESAR, Poet, Philosopher and Lawyer lives in Manchesteramaeshi.amaeshi@gmail.com